News briefs 10.15.03

On the rear side of a long commercial building at 176
Anderson Avenue, in a parking lot facing the train tracks, kids are creating
vivid masterpieces.

Paul Knoblauch, a metal artist who works out of the
building, has met some of the graffiti artists. He thinks that part of the
canvas' appeal is its visibility from the train.

The
other draw? The artists --- mostly white teenagers from the suburbs --- have
permission to paint there from the building's owner, Gary Stern.

Stern's
son and business partner, Mitch Stern, says kids can paint the wall of the
building that faces the tracks, as long as they don't paint over windows or
business entrances. He guesses his father gave permission to an artist years
ago and "word kind of spread that it's cool to do it here."

The
brick is completely covered in layers of paint. Names and pictures seep over
the edges of the walls and onto the ground. Haunting portraits, cultural icons,
and artists' stylish tags all appear in sleek colors and clean lines. Phrases
--- some slogans, some messages from one artist to another --- snake around the
images.

Knoblauch
points out tags that he recognizes --- two artists that go by APE and Skeem ---
and also some art that had been added overnight. A freshly painted skull tells
him that a teenage girl he knows was there the night before.

He
also points out some art that has been partially covered over. "Some of it is
respected," he says, "and they won't paint over it for a while." The new trend,
he says, is stencils and stickers. One stencil, done in white, shows a smiling
child holding a small, upside-down American flag.

But
the prolific season is over. School has started, and these artists have to be
in class.

--- Erica Curtis

March for peace

As the "Q word" (quagmire) and the "I
word" (imperialism) crowd the collective imagination again, some
Rochester-area peacemakers are gearing up for a March on Washington, Saturday, October 25.

Co-sponsored by two national
formations, the International ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and
Justice, the march has a simple demand: "End the Occupation and Bring the
Troops Home!"

A flier for
the march makes the demand interrogative: "$87 billion on top of the $79
billion already spent? Who is paying for this war? Three-hundred-sixteen US
soldiers and 6,000-8,000 Iraqi civilians. [The numbers grow daily.] And jobs?
And health care? Civil liberties? Veterans
benefits?"

Genesee
Valley Citizens for Peace, a Geneseo-based group, is spearheading the local
organizing. Buses are being lined up for taking participants to the rally; the
cost per person is $40 from Geneseo and $45 from Rochester. Some bus fare
"scholarships" may be available. (Donations to a national scholarship
fund may be sent to: United for Peace and Justice, c/o Yvonne, PO Box 607,
Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108; see www.unitedforpeace.org for more
details.)

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
just released a report on commercial
pesticide application in 2001.

The report
establishes Monroe County as one of New York's most well-applied counties, with
more than 68,000 gallons plus nearly
1.4 million pounds of pesticides spread. (Totals are given in gallons or pounds
according to medium of application; to get the true total, the gallons and
pounds must be lumped together.) Our total gallons went way down from last
year, but our total pounds went up substantially.

Suffolk and Westchester counties
were ahead of us in total applications, but we whipped Erie and Onondaga
counties hands down. Even Wayne County, with all those fruit orchards and farm
fields, came in well below Monroe County's total.

The
statewide totals run to 2.3 million gallons and 16.9 million pounds. That's a
bit down from last year.

Cleaning up our act

For a long time, it's seemed New York State's slogan should
be changed to "Brownfields Forever." Years and years went by, and
competing interests inside and outside Albany failed to reach agreement on
legislation to clean up toxic sites all over the map, or to dig up the
necessary money.

But now both houses of the State
Legislature have passed, and Governor George Pataki has signed, a new Superfund-Brownfield law that will make
clean-ups more likely --- and cleaner, too. The law will refinance the state
Superfund and related programs with up to $135 million in annual funds from
bonds, fees, the state's general fund, and other sources, according to the
governor's office. The measure also provides for a "State Brownfields
Clean-up Program" to jump-start private investment. And there are some
upgrades to the state's Municipal Environmental Restoration Program.

An
environmental coalition --- the Citizens Environmental Coalition, the New York
Public Interest Research Group, and the Sierra Club --- is hailing the new law.
The groups are happy that money will flow at long last, and that the law, in
one activist's words, "maintains the Superfund program's stringent
clean-up goals."

Yet the groups understand there are
"loopholes," most prominently, one about "use-based clean-up
standards." This could allow some contamination to be left on certain
sites slated for industrial re-use.

But on the
bright side, the new law keeps in place "the historic 50/50 split between
industry fees and public funds," as the environmental coalition's
statement says. Lots of New Yorkers were worried that Albany might retreat from
the "polluter pays" principle and leave the taxpayer holding the
whole bag. Fortunately, that was headed off at the pass.